


WHISKEY TANGO FOXTROT, or: THE CURIOUS CASE OF BELLA VALENTINE AND THE BETELGEUSIANS IN AMERICA

by leepepper



Category: The Sims (Video Games)
Genre: 2000s, Alien Abduction, Alien Biology, Amnesia, Dysfunctional Family, F/F, F/M, Family, Gen, Hate Crimes, High School, Homophobia, Infidelity, Intersex, M/M, Magical Realism, Mpreg, Multi, Mystery, Nonbinary Character, Other Ships Not Mentioned in Tags, Polyamory, Sexuality, Trials, other characters not mentioned in tags
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-04
Updated: 2020-12-04
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:54:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27762562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leepepper/pseuds/leepepper
Summary: In an alternate history of the world in which the aliens have invaded to make friends and babies with the human race, Bella Valentine of Everspring, Oregon goes missing under mysterious circumstances amid the swiftly escalating engagement of her daughter and the town casanova. Miles away in Strange Point, New Mexico, a woman with no memory of her past is taken in by the Christmas/Vela family - a melting pot of Mexican and alien culture making their way through life in the weirdest spot in the Chihuahuan desert.
Relationships: Bella Goth/Mortimer Goth, Cassandra Goth/Don Lothario, Daniel Pleasant/Mary-Sue Pleasant, Dina Caliente/Mortimer Goth, Jenny Smith/Pollination Technician, Ophelia Nigmos/Johnny Smith, Ripp Grunt/Ophelia Nigmos/Johnny Smith
Comments: 6
Kudos: 1





	WHISKEY TANGO FOXTROT, or: THE CURIOUS CASE OF BELLA VALENTINE AND THE BETELGEUSIANS IN AMERICA

**Author's Note:**

> okay! first thing’s first - this is based heavily on the sims 2 lore, obviously, but there have been some things changed/ignored/shoehorned in in a weird way. for example, the smith/curious family is now the christmas/vela family and they’re mexican-american instead of being white/racially ambiguous. veronaville is not a distinct neighborhood, but is shoehorned in with pleasantview. there are little changes like that all over the place, and i won’t waste my time listing them all out right here when it’s so much more fun to just let you discover them. i’ve spent a long time on this story, fleshing it out and working in little idiosyncrasies, doing research on the time period and delving into my own memories to bring some authenticity to that, so i hope at least someone will enjoy that. 
> 
> i don’t know if it’s safe to call this an original work given how heavily it borrows from sims 2 lore, but oh well. i’m treating it as a book that i’m writing, so there! :o)
> 
> in terms of the warnings indicated for this story: when i say there's rape/non-con, i refer to alien abduction and impregnation of unwilling men. there's no actual rape scenes in this story.
> 
> just in case it’s not clear which character is an analogue to which, i’ll list them all here:  
> mortimer valentine - mortimer goth  
> bella valentine - bella goth  
> ophelia valentine - cassandra goth  
> adonis valentine - alexander goth  
> vito acquarone - simis bachelor  
> misty acquarone - jocasta bachelor  
> leonardo acquarone - michael bachelor
> 
> david goodwin - daniel pleasant  
> yuna goodwin - mary-sue pleasant  
> clementine goodwin - angela pleasant  
> lilith goodwin - lilith pleasant  
> william “bill” goodwin - jeff pleasant  
> diana goodwin - diane pleasant  
> naomi demarco - jennifer burb  
> jack demarco - john burb  
> lucille “lucy” demarco - lucy burb
> 
> crystal boone - brandi broke  
> daxx boone - dustin broke  
> beau boone - beau broke  
> tyler boone - unborn baby broke  
> tripp boone - skip broke
> 
> denzel hendricks - darren dreamer  
> xavier hendricks - dirk dreamer  
> jeannie hendricks - darleen dreamer
> 
> nazli sidi - dina caliente  
> deniz sidi - nina caliente
> 
> eamon baudelaire - consort capp  
> elizabeth baudelaire - contessa capp  
> sebastian baudelaire - tybalt capp  
> miranda baudelaire - hermia capp  
> hermione baudelaire - juliette capp  
> reagan baudelaire - regan capp  
> donald ainsworth - cornwall capp  
> quinton baudelaire - kent capp
> 
> patrizio rizzoli - patrizio monty  
> loretta rizzoli - isabella monty  
> lorenzo rizzoli - claudio monty  
> bianca rizzoli - olivia monty  
> marco rizzoli - mercutio monty  
> rome rizzoli - romeo monty
> 
> yves belmondo - oberon summerdream  
> zazie belmondo - titania summerdream  
> kindred belmondo - puck summerdream  
> desdemona belmondo - bottom summerdream
> 
> nico casablancas - don lothario  
> marianna landau - kaylynn langerak
> 
> gideon christmas - pollination technician #9 smith  
> zoie christmas - jenny smith  
> johnny christmas - johnny smith  
> kit christmas - jill smith
> 
> elias vela - glarn curious  
> sydney vela - lola curious  
> tosca vela - chloe curious  
> dolores vela - glabe curious  
> pascal vela - pascal curious  
> oscar vela - vidcund curious  
> laszlo vela - lazlo curious  
> esmeralda vela - kitty curious  
> nino vela - tycho curious
> 
> olympia coombs - olive specter  
> jolie oyaya - ophelia nigmos  
> julian kravitz - nervous subject
> 
> gordon kennedy - buzz grunt  
> wanda kennedy - lyla grunt  
> sylvester kennedy - tank grunt  
> frank kennedy - ripp grunt  
> jamie kennedy - buck grunt
> 
> ansel halvorsen - loki beaker  
> celesta halvorsen - circe beaker  
> ivy halvorsen - erin beaker
> 
> sheila singh - kristen loste

**ZEUS (1955-1956)**

  
  
  


The green beings from the Betelgeusian solar system kicked off their Terran social program on January 28, 1955 - an otherwise unremarkable day in the Sichuan province of the People’s Republic of China. Their first man was an unassuming Zhi Lu - a Mandarin rice farmer with a wife and two school-age children - who passed many of his days in identical fashion and enjoyed all that was delightfully mundane and not very mentally gymnastic. When the green beings came, they came as an anathema to this, this lifestyle Zhi Lu so delighted in.

The world did not hear about Zhi Lu until January 1956, by which time two other men - one from Pondicherry, India and another from Strange Point, New Mexico - had experienced dealings with the Betelgeusians. Specifically, they did not hear about Zhi Lu or the green ones at all until one Elías Vela got on American national television raving about how he’d been abducted by aliens and now they were talking in his head:

“- sucked into the belly of this glowing _thing_ , this [ _expletive_ ] glowing, triangle-shaped thing, and a week later I come to and I’ve got voices in my head. Doctors are calling me [ _expletive_ ] paranoid schizophrenic, but I’m not schizophrenic, I’m not crazy, I’m not- what I am is [ _expletive_ ] pregnant!”

Elías Vela couldn’t have been more different from Zhi Lu. A Mexican immigrant to the United State of New Mexico, engaged to a loose-kneed woman who sewed desert flowers into their hair for fun, Mr. Vela drove fast in a car from the early 1950s and called his brand of hard work salvaging metal parts in a process that would only in later decades be described as hoarding rather than recycling. On October 8, 1955, he smoked an American Spirit out on the dusty front yard and was greeted by a vision in the sky: an infinitely-paneled, sparkling pyramid that rotated clockwise about its vertical axis as it floated in his direction. Idly, the aloe plants began to audibly screech in response to the pyramid’s presence.

“ _¿Que mierda?_ ” Elias asked around his cigarette’s butt. The pyramid tipped its base toward him. The aloe’s song began to take on Gregorian qualities. The Chihuahuan desert stretched coldly out in all directions. All was light, and then nothing.

When his betrothed found him in the scrub about a mile from home, he was naked and speaking in tongues. No signs of stroke at the hospital, just a prescription of bedrest and plenty of water. For a week, Elias Vela twitched in his sleep and made the strange mouthnoises he’d been making when his dear Dolores discovered him facedown in white sand. Then, on October 15, he woke to the sound of twin children giggling through static, giggling him awake.

“ _¡Dolores!_ ” he screamed into the house - his first coherent word in seven days. The children laughed louder, so he added, “ _¿Dónde están los malditos hijos?_ ”

Dolores appeared in the bedroom doorway with a basket of laundry propped against her hip. “ _¿Que hijos?_ ”

“The ones that are fucking laughing so loud…” Elias stumbled naked out of bed. The children’s laughter became vibrant white noise, and Dolores peered at him as if he’d really went and lost it. 

The children did nothing but speak to him. Their voices sounded as though they emerged from a tin can. Did the decibels ricochet off and against the inner walls of Mr. Vela’s skull? Were the children talking on the phone in a place with bad service? Elias wondered these things every time they started up, almost always at night, almost always laughing their characteristic ringing, echoing, moon language laughs. 

Most of the time it was just television static, alien babbling transmitted to his ears from the heart of a dying star somewhere far away. Three months into their tenure, though, as Elias stood pumping gas into his ‘52 Chevy Bel Air at the Fuel and Wash, a human word came hurtling through the static like a fastball – **_9!@ &PAPA!%4$_ **

Elias grasped at his belly, where he’d begun very recently to bloat just in time for the Christmas holiday, as if it had been physically struck. It was an auditory quickening – the first time he’d been made aware of any human presence within him. 

“Babies?” he asked, and immediately felt like an idiot for not having realized what was going on sooner. He was not crazy, as Bob Winston, MD with his ineffective prescriptions for Haldol and Prolixin had been telling him for the previous three months. This was not a paranoid hallucination. This was full-blown benevolent parasitism, this was the aftermath of a date rape he didn’t even remember, this was his comeuppance for refusing to give Dolores children out of a sense of still being a little boy himself.

**_8w31@#Papa!7% &02Hello!1%8#!_ **

He was going to officially lose his shit. 

Of course, Dolores was over the fucking moon about it. She hadn’t felt so excited since she was a teenager; she hadn’t felt so excited since she fell in love for the first time. Dolores talked to Babies.

“How are you feeling today?”

**_39$5%!Ummmm...hungry!!2 &Carneasadaplease?!93!@0&_ **

“Can you hear? That’s Mozart.” 

**_93!@0 &Fast and loud!%7I liked The Platters can you bring that back thankyou!89#@0k_ **

Babies liked doo-wop and the sound the washing machine made at the end of its cycle. Babies’ favorite foods were colored green and sometimes orange. Babies trusted the sound of Dolores’ voice – on the days when Elias came home early from work and fancied himself a spot next to Dolores on the couch, with her hand on his swollenness and her monologue on the weather or some such shit, Babies laughed that gentle metallic laugh and asked softly for more.

Elias never told this to Dolores.

Elias wanted Babies out of him.

Before the news channels and the obstetricians, he laid in bed at night and thought of ways to kill Babies. Contemplated alcohol poisoning and throwing himself down the stairs. Wondered about the logistics of a coathanger abortion. Babies overheard all the vicious thoughts about them and internalized shame and hatred that would, later in life, show itself in shades of silent self-flagellation and sexual promiscuity, but then, in the moment of Elias’ slow, vitriolic inner diatribe, they simply talked back to dear Papa.

**_67!%$Don’tkillus Papa weloveyou. Life will be so good on the outside youwillsee.595@ &#_ **

“Shut the fuck up,” Elias whispered back into the popcorn ceiling, so softly Dolores couldn’t hear him though she laid at his side.

 **_90!#$ &Weloveyou weloveyou please4%#@,_ ** Babies cried. **_& r872!@Do not harm us.$#517#_ **

America and the world entire were swept up into the scandal of the pregnant man. News bulletins speculated about the end of the world and the Catholic church’s response and where and when this would happen again, would the aliens strike at home or abroad, did this mean war, etc. Obstetricians prescribed antihistamines for Elias’ incessant itching and produced ultrasound images of twin children curled together in a makeshift womb. Seven months into the pregnancy, Dolores began calling Babies by names - Sydney and Tosca, chosen from a baby name book checked out from the local library - and at the instance of this, Elias threatened to kill Dolores along with his parasitic offspring; “ _¡Puta madre!_ ” he exclaimed, swinging a fist and catching air where his betrothed’s head was seconds before. “You will not name these creatures!”

“They’re not creatures!” came the slightly uncertain reply. “They’re just children!”

Then, in July 1956, it was time. 

**_96%$!It’s time. It’s time. It’s time. It’s time.$ &89k0#_ **

Cesarean was the only way to go. Otherwise there might have been rupture. Elias never felt more humiliated in his twenty-three years when out of him was lifted two green babies covered in blood and amniosis - not crying, not gasping, just looking around the room with wide shiny eyes blacked out and wise - and the humiliation never stopped. Not after bringing Sydney and Tosca home to their Ikea cribs and Gerber fruit and vegetable purees. Not after tying the knot with Dolores in a meager city hall wedding with both babies in her arms, apple green and watching him. Not after the bathtub incident, where he wrestled his children into the clear water and let them cry and struggle until Dolores came into the room and beat him away from them with a handsome bottle of baby shampoo.

They just looked at him after they were born.

Laughed - like babies laugh as newborns, like that was even a thing that was possible.

In the hospital, Dolores held each to her chest and kissed them asleep until Elias could only turn his face away in disgust, wondering what had happened to him, to his life, to the world.

This was the beginning.

**Author's Note:**

> have a REALLY long playlist for this story: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5nJ7XmyGbzZtL5XPcxRU8O?si=xoE7iEBCQOWnWKuD8TfDAQ  
> the goal was to make a playlist that approximates exactly what it's like to be in this world in 2004 and 2005. there's a lot of period-appropriate music, music from my childhood, as well as music stolen from various versions of the game here!


End file.
